Contents

Status

I own both Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! and Punch-Out!!. I have beat every boxer except Tyson.

Review

Overall: 6/10

Best Version: NES

Good

The boxing mechanic of dodging punches and counter-punching is a great system.

The game gives you very flexible control over Little Mac and allows you to move faster as you become more comfortable with the moves.

The stamina stat was a clever way to prevent the player from just mashing buttons.

Rewarding the player's experimentation with uppercut stars is a good mechanic that rewards creativity.

While the boxing mechanic is relatively the same throughout the game, each boxer introduces a new element keeping the game fresh all the way to the end.

The large flicker-free character sprites were very impressive for the time.

Bad

The game is really racist in the way it depicts boxers. The Russian is a drunk, the Pacific Islander is fat with beady little eyes, the Frenchman is weak and pathetic, etc. Although, I do have to give them credit for having such a diverse line up.

Mike Tyson is extremely hard. A little too hard for most players, and it kind of hurts the game.

Continuing after losing a match is setup weird. Sometimes you get a couple rematches before getting a game over, sometimes you get a game over the first time you lose.